25% of your heating/cooling bill goes out the window

Pelmets are little boxes that go over the top of your windows to prevent air from creeping in from above your blinds. Turns out they aren’t just for decoration, they actually have a fairly significant purpose.

Who knew? Not me.

Pelmets are like scarves for your windows. The keep the draft out, and they do this through winter and summer, reducing your heating and cooling bills by helping to trap the air inside your home.

Astounded by my new discovery of the uses of pelmets I searched up how much they cost. The answer isn’t a fun one. The cheapest I could find was $46.09, that’s per blind.[iii] I don’t know about you, but I have 10 windows in my house, and I cannot afford to fork out $460.90 for a place that isn’t my forever home.

So, I got creative.

We had just received our delivery of tissues, toilet paper and paper towels from a company called, ‘Who gives a crap,’ (more on this group later) and suddenly, I saw the boxes in a new light.

These would be my new pelmets.

This took a little fiddling for the first one. It is just like everything, the first time you do something it takes a little while to figure it out. But now I can make my own pelmets, and it takes me about an hour to make one per window. An hour and a half if I want to make it pretty.

Just like a bought one. Except this one was free.

Not only was it free, but it is now helping me save money, so it’s like getting paid to build things. Winning.

Two boxes made one large window pelmet and a small one. So it will take a little while for me to get enough boxes to create a pelmet for all my windows, but I am confident it won’t take me too long. I might grab some free boxes off Facebook marketplace to speed up the process.

While the pelmets help reduce the energy loss through the top of the curtain, it is important not to neglect the sides. For this, you have to do some work on your blinds. Its, okay, it’s easy, takes minimal effort, and if you do it right, no one will be able to see your modifications, not your guests, not your landlord.

Most people open their blinds from the middle and push the material to the side of the window frames. If this is you, I have a quick, simple fix for you.

Grab a couple of pins and secure the side of the curtain you never move to the window frame, this will stop air from escaping through the sides of your curtains. I put one pin at the top of my blind, and one at the bottom and I pressed them into the edge of the window frame. It’s simple, concealed and will save you and the environment energy on your heating and cooling bill.

It took me 15 minutes to do this for the whole house, and I can already feel the temperature difference over the last few days. It’s worth the time.

To figure out what we saved by building pelmets and fixing the sides of our blinds we need to have a solid average for your yearly electricity bill. So here it is, according to Canstar the average annual electricity bill for Victoria Australia is $1,671.32.[i]

We know that 20-50% of our annual bill goes on heating and cooling so let’s work with 35% as an average.

35% of $1671.32 is $584.96 a year per household.

So $584.96 is how much the average Australian household spends on heating and cooling a year.

Well, we know that after fixing all our air leakage we are saving 25% with our pelmets and blind pins

25% of our heating and cooling was lost, and now we are saving it.

25% of $584= $146 every year

$146 is how much you will save annually on your energy bills if you take some time to reduce your heat loss through your windows.

Not only will you save a tonne of money, but you will also reduce the amount of energy you use, saving coal, reducing pollution, slowing deforestation and you are making a difference. This is a lot of winning, and it is something you can pride yourself on, tell your friends and share the savings.

Monetary and environmental.

This information was taken from the book ‘Take charge of your lifestyle.’ Written by Jessica Evergreen.

Did you know this book will help your household save over $15,000 every single year while giving you assistance in taking back your time and improving your health?
All of this while saving the environment.
That is a lot of winning inside one little book.

Creator of worlds, adventures, magic, and lives, (AKA author but it sounds less impressive now doesn't it ;) )
Advocate for and of sustainable living, tea addict, prone to random outbursts of song, may build something out of random items and leave it for people to find, and occasionally educates small humans for money (AKA Teacher).